Sara Dia

Description

Water has been a source of passion for Sara, which has completed her master’s degree in 2016 monitoring the quality of Lake Qaraoun, the largest artificial lake in Lebanon. At first, her interest was purely academic, she wanted to make the water better – but the current state of politics in her country forced her to take into consideration different perspectives on water management.

As all water problems are, the case of the lake is a complex one – one that has kept her interested in water, continuing to collect samples after she finished her master’s degree. The lake has been polluted for several years, and due to uncontrolled discharge of point and non-point pollutant loads, the water quality severely deteriorated. And the issue has been highly political. Poor and insufficient management has led to sewage discharge, and rampant corruption limits the amount of money truly directed towards solutions. Also, the presence of informal settlements on its bank has also stopped the government from implementing permanent solutions on managing the waste produced by the camp.

Her first experience with international collaboration came from her participation in Water Innovation Lab in Canada, 2018. The objective of the lab is to gather youth around the same water, specific to the host country, and encourage them to come up with innovative solutions.

Following her time in Canada, she had the opportunity to meet the President of the World Youth Parliament for Water, Lindsey Aldaco-Manner, that was in Lebanon. She convinced Sara to get on board and help in founding a WYPW chapter in Lebanon – which she did with a few colleagues who shared the same passion.

The chapter was built on three thematic areas; awareness, advocacy and governance, and research. All three areas go back to Sara’s first-hand experience in dealing with corrupt government authorities while working on the lake. Their work focused on giving youth a voice on water issues, bridging the gap between them and decision-makers. The Lebanon Youth Parliament for Water (LYPW) had the opportunity to raise awareness in schools and host sessions in several events. Last June, the Water Innovation Lab was hosted in Lebanon from which participants joined the Lebanon Parliament for Water.

Sara has been, throughout her career, in a special place – being a youth as well as working in academia. Her vision consists of seeing a true involvement of research in the decision-making process, and collaboration between government, academia, youth, and the private sector to come up with sustainable solutions to the water problems in Lebanon.

Although her work through the Parliament has been halted due to the revolution and the economic crisis, she remains hopeful – she says that they still have their water community and they have to be resilient. She’s hoping things will change the better, as she believes politics have been the biggest obstacle.

We know the solutions, and politics proved to be the most challenging thing to overcome. Whether we like it or not, there’s a fight and we have to figure out a way.

The WYPW has been giving her hope, as she believes that sharing your progress and working with like-minded people will lead to conversations that can help you overcome challenges.